Thursday, September 4, 2008

Scott Jennings thinks it’s him. In fairness to Scott, he’s met the man – I haven’t. However, you will have to forgive my extreme skepticism that this is legitimate.

First of all, the blog just appears as-if Mark one day decided to throw together a Wordpress blog. And while a great many bloggers (including myself) have taken just that approach, I am skeptical that the General Manager of a major “about-to-be-release” MMO would have either the time or inclination to create such a blog.

Secondly, other than the “about” page there is no affiliation with Mythic or Warhammer. No Mythic logo, No Warhammer graphics, no trademark usage at all. In fact, it uses a very generic template. I have to believe that if the GENERAL MANAGER of Mythic wanted to start a blog, it would be closely tied to the look/feel of the Mythic brand. At the very least, he would take the time to make it pretty enough for the massive amount of traffic such a blog would generate.

Thirdly, why isn’t it hosted on Mythic’s website? In the rare instances that executives do have such blogs, these are almost always part of the official website. Everything he says (on his personal blog or not) is taken with the same authority as-if he were conducting an interview. It makes no sense to have such a blog squirreled away on a private site. He runs the company for crying out loud! If he wants a blog, all he has to say is – webmaster, I want a blog and “poof” he has a blog.

Fourth, if you made the decision not to offer “official” forums then why would you run a site that had comments? On a site that doesn’t even have the infrastructure or moderators to handle all the trolls that will flock to a legitimate blog.

Fifth, why now? Why during the crunch-time in the mere weeks leading up to a major product release? Why not months ago during development? Does he just happen to have a bunch more free time in the immediate weeks leading up to release?

Sorry, Scott. I know you met him, but this just doesn’t make any sense. I have to believe this guy is a fraud. Maybe I’ll eat crow, but I doubt it.

Edit: Eating crow. OMG! Did I just say that Mark Jacobs is full of shit?! It is him. Now I just think he’s being foolish. (thanks to Ruur for the link)

All the questions I just stated above are all still correct:- why now?- why no trademark or logo affiliation with Mythic or Warhammer?- why isn’t it hosted on Mythic’s website?- why allow comments here but no official forums?

I can appreciate the desire to communicate but it does seem like this blog is badly planned and ill-conceived. Good luck, but it strikes me as a disaster in the making.

3 comments:

Thanks for the link, Ruur. I’ve updated the original entry, but left my initial reaction. I’m man enough to take the shots when I am clearly wrong. As I wrote in the edit however, it still doesn’t answer the questions I was raising.

I mean, it might be him – but it still doesn’t make any sense. If he wanted a blog, why not just create an official blog on the Mythic website? He would get more credibility, exposure and an infrastructure to provide him with better tools to moderate the blog and use the Mythic branding.

When you are the exec of multi-million dollar company, you don’t just one day decide to create some haphazard thrown together blog less than two weeks prior to a major product launch. Or I guess you do…